Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to material used for an implant implanted intravitally, and in particular, relates to implant material made of porous metal.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-251433, filed Nov. 10, 2010, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Description of the Related Art
Patent Documents 1 to 3 describes implants which are implanted intravitally.
An implant (an intervertebral spacer) described in Patent Document 1 is used by inserted and arranged between centrums from which an intervertebral disk is removed. In order to easily insert the implant and prevent the implant from falling out, the implant includes a spacer body with an upper surface and a lower surface having unique figures.
An implant (a dental implant) described in Patent Document 2 is formed from: a heart material which is formed from solid-columnar titanium or titanium alloy; and a porous layer which is arranged by the heart material. The porous layer is made by sintering a plurality of spherical grains made of titanium or titanium alloy so that a plurality of continuous holes are made between the spherical grains which are bound with each other by sintering. The spherical grains each have a surface layer of gold-titanium alloy, so that the adjacent spherical grains are bound with each other by the surface layers. Accordingly, the implant described in Patent Document 2 is suggested as a small dental implant having high bound strength with a jawbone.
An implant described in Patent Document 3 is made of porous material, and includes a first part with high porosity rate and a second part with low porosity rate. In this case, for example, by inserting the second part of the implant made from absolute high-density material having a titanium-inlay-shape into a hole made at the second part of the implant having a shape of titanium foam in green and sintering them, the second part is adhered by contracting the first part. The second part with low porosity rate is used for implanting or adhesion, so that it can be prevented to waste the grains in implanting or adhesion because of the low porosity rate.